Hau dismisses presidential bid talk

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin, left, shakes hands with an officer in front of surveillance monitors during a visit to the Taipei City Police Department Command and Control Center yesterday.

PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday dismissed speculation that he would team up with Sinbei mayor-elect Eric Chu (朱立倫) to run in the 2016 presidential election.

“My duty for the next four years is to commit myself fully to serving the residents of Taipei and making the city a better place,” he said in response to media inquiries about the possible pairing during a question-and-answer session he chaired after the weekly city affairs meeting.

Hau, 58, secured his second four-year term in Saturday’s special municipality elections, while Chu won the Sinbei mayoral post.

In the next presidential election, Hau said liberalization would be important, adding that he believed future developments would be in the KMT’s favor if the public were to feel the economy improving and the government was performing well.

The electoral chances of a candidate would be equally important, he said, adding that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is a clean and honest politician with great vision and capability.

“Saturday’s poll marks the end of the party’s recent streak of election defeats and Taipei City is a prominent indicator,” he said.

While the Chinese-language China Times quoted anonymous sources at Hau’s campaign as saying that the election-eve shooting in which one of former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) sons, Sean Lien (連勝文), was shot in the face played an important role in his electoral triumph, Hau yesterday tried to play down the impact of the incident on his campaign.

Hau said various polls conducted before the election indicated that he would prevail as he was leading by between 4 percent and 10 percent, about 60,000 to 80,000 votes, against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).

Hau eventually won by 12 percent, or about 170,000 votes.

Hau yesterday attributed his victory to the vision he laid out for his second term, achievements he made over the past four years and his personal qualities and credentials.

Other factors he cited included the economic recovery and the administration’s sound crisis management in the wake of typhoons. The public has also begun to feel the benefits of the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, he said.

Hau yesterday reiterated his pledge to bid for the 2019 Asian Games and urged the DPP to join forces to help secure the bid.